ᴀᴘʜʀᴏᴅɪᴛᴇ // $ᴜɪᴄɪᴅᴇʙᴏʏ$

Chapter Five

APHRODITE (PRESENT DAY)

In the Summer of 2017 was when I first met Aristos Petrou. He had just been released from the mental hospital after six months of treatment for schizophrenia. His cousin, Scott, wanted to be sure somebody would look after him. It wasn't out of fear that Aristos might hurt somebody else, but fear that he was a danger to himself. They both were wealthy criminals, gangsters, and killers. But the family bond, the blood bond was something that made everyone scared of them, even envy them.

So, when Aristos got out of the mental hospital, there was one thing that Scott needed to be sure of. Aristos had to take his pills to bound the demons inside of his head. He didn't want to tame the beast, he just needed to know that his cousin was under control. Scott understood what he was going through, having been in and out of rehab centers for his heroin addiction. He just needed someone to be there for Aristos because he was so busy.

My mom had met Scott Arceneaux a couple of months ago through god knows what or who. She was always among men in the criminal world. Once my mom heard the word money, she promised Scott that I would take care of Aristos once he got out of the institution. She knew how gruesome the cousins were, practically the whole city knew, but when it came to money she didn't hesitate for a second to sell me to them. I had no money and no job, so in order to keep my apartment, I had to do this for a while.

I was a twenty-three-year-old woman being controlled by my mom. My mom who had been abusive my entire life.

Once upon a time there were five of us, all living in a rundown three-bedroom house for most of my childhood in the seventh ward of New Orleans. But I stayed good. I never involved myself with drugs or the wrong crowd. I steered clear of boys and tried my very best in school. I smiled for my teachers and laughed with the other girls in class. When I became a teenager, I worked hard at my minimum wage job.

When I went home at the end of the day, I went to war. My mom ran the house. Not as a wife and mother should but dictating and controlling our lives to suit her. My mom was a very beautiful woman, and my dad an average guy. And when my mom started messing around with other men and disappearing, my dad lost his mind. They would fight, verbally and physically. My dad would fight my younger brother. My baby sister was too young to understand what was going on, too small to be included in the dysfunction. And my mom, she absolutely hated me.

I remembered the nights when I would stay awake just to make sure she'd gotten home safely. Then she would scream at me and tell me to mind my own damn business. I would try to help her; try to convince her that her ways were wrong, and that she had a responsibility to take care of my dad and siblings. But she laughed at me and turned them all against me. And before I knew it, I was taking care of the entire family. I would go to school during the day, work at night, all to help feed my parents and brother and sister. Yes, my dad went to work at a construction company, but my mom spent most of his money for herself, leaving very little for the bills. So, I used all of my paychecks towards helping with the bills and my siblings. A lot fell on my shoulders.

People in the neighborhood would whisper about us. That sad little family in the sad little brown house. Did you hear them fighting again last night? Did you hear their two-year-old girl crying while the older girl and the mother screamed at each other? Let me tell you about it...

When I turned eighteen I could have left immediately and started my own life. But my dad's immaturity kept me there, my brother begged me to stay, my baby sister needed a mother, and my mom would guilt me into coming back to that sad little house every single night. Yes, we're a family that physically fights with each other; I wanted to tell the people who whispered about us. Yes, we're the ones who fall victim to domestic violence and adultery. Yes, it's happening right now, and you're right, you should turn away when we walk too close and talk behind our backs. Maybe it's contagious. It's found our house and soon, it'll find yours.